


When the Silence is Deafening

by JacksWild



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock BBC, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - fandom
Genre: Angst, Heartache, Heartbreak, M/M, Silence, Violins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacksWild/pseuds/JacksWild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a friend, when do we lose our mind to the anguish? Or is it anguish if we only lose our hearts to love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Silence is Deafening

JOHN woke up one morning to a dreary rainy sky. The room was dull, the dust moats hidden from the sun. The curtains closed, but a bit of light pouring through the rips in the aging fabric. He laid in bed for a moment. Noticing the silence but not savoring it. He hated silence. Silence meant that Sherlock was still dead. Silence meant the Sherlock wasn’t angsty about a case, or angry about Anderson, or needy for interaction. Silence meant that John was still alone.

He got up and went about the day. Working in the hospital, noticing that the silence seemed to follow him everywhere he went. Between patients, during patients visits, while in the loo, while eating at lunch. Silence was dogging him. A nagging bee, buzzing silently around his head, as if to proclaim that it did not need to make noise with its wings to annoy John.

The silence followed him to the grocery. The dull agony of searching the aisles for something, anything that interested him enough to put it in his mouth, to swallow, and hopefully not throw it up. The silence even disturbed him in the chip and pin line, people quietly going about their lives, so as not to disturb the grieving man. As if he had a sign wrapped about his body, “Be silent to keep from startling me.”

The subway was silent. More than normal it seemed. Though normal nowadays was silent or silent plus. He saw that everyone had headphones in, loud in their ears, but so as not to hear others or be disturbed. Even the woman to the left of him, hadn’t changed the page of the paper she was reading, as if in fear of the crinkle of paper being too much.

He came home. 221B, good ole flat, with the good ole Mrs. Hudson, who had found herself more quiet in the past few years than her normal self. She didn’t like to make noise, she once told John, because she didn’t want to miss the music of the violin when Sherlock came home. John had cried that night. Tears induced from whiskey in a pillow made of wool, into dreams of his selfless friend.

The next morning he awoke before the morning sun. Before his alarm, before the cars were moving about in their morning delays. He half wondered for the wakefulness, but was cut short with a soft wail of a G floating through the air. Tears started falling down his face, as if in recognition that he had finally lost his mind. His mind had decayed to the point that he could hear music, a soft melody, wrapping around him. He cried silently, tears pooling into the pillow, a sadness that he hadn’t felt in years hitting him all at once, rushing over him in a wave, drowning him whole. 

After minutes, hours, weeks, years later, he got up from the bed. His heart heavy in his chest, an ache that couldn’t be healed with a quarry of tears, a hole that couldn’t be filled with anyone or anything. He walked down the steps, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, skip step 7, 8, 9, …17. He got to the landing and stopped. He hadn’t stepped on step 7, that was the first time in years. He shook his head, looks like he’d be skipping the tea and heading for the whiskey.

He turned the corner, and noticed immediately that the violin had been taken out of the case and set on the table, the bow still warm from use. His anger palpable, that someone would come into his home and disturb his things. He touched the strings, his heart beating heavy in his chest, causing him to wonder whether he was in fact having a heart attack. He picked up the violin and bow and took to the only song that he knew. One that he had learned, back when he had thought that Sherlock would have walked back through the door. He let the lilting irish hymn roll through the room, through the bow, through him. 

He finished, a soft high note a buzz in the air. His face crumpled into a shell of a man. A shell of a man that he hadn’t known he wanted to be. 

"Return to Me." Sherlock said from the doorway.

John looked up, moving his head so fast that he cracked it, the bones smacking so hard together that they echoed throughout the room.

"Am I dreaming?" He asked, fearful the last shreds of sanity had finally left, and he would live a life with Sherlock in insanity until his dying day.

"No, John, My Soldier." Sherlock walked forward and took the violin from his Soldier and set it down. "No, Captain, I am most assuredly here."


End file.
